Science
press releases.

Science2 Jul 2024

Starfish skeleton inspires new 4D morphing structure

Researchers have recently developed a flexible-yet-sturdy morphing structure inspired by the starfish skeleton that exhibits 4D morphing features with promising applications for robotics, aviation, and medical devices. “Starfish possess the remarkable ability to effortlessly hold themselves in any body posture by changing the stiffness of their endoskeleton,” says Raman, a PhD student in the Biological Structures and Biomimetics workgroup at Hochschule Bremen - City University of Applied Sciences Bremen, Germany. Ossicles are calcite microstructures inside starfish bodies that are connected in a ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

Eating more soy foods could improve thinking and attention in kids

Chicago (July 2, 2024) — A new study found that school-aged children who consumed more isoflavones from soy foods exhibited better thinking abilities and attention. These findings pave the way for future research aimed at unraveling how soy foods can positively impact children's cognitive abilities. Isoflavones are naturally occurring compounds found in various plants, particularly soybeans and soy products. Although previous research in adults has suggested that soy isoflavones can improve memory, the ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

Changes in emergency contraceptive fills after Massachusetts’ statewide standing order

About The Study: The Massachusetts statewide standing order policy was associated with a 32% increase in emergency contraceptive fills at pharmacies versus comparison states. After the policy, fills for prescription-only ulipristal more than doubled and accounted for the observed increases in fills for emergency contraceptives. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Dima M. Qato, Pharm.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., email qato@usc.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2024.11715) Editor’s ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

SRF launches the SYNGAP1 missense account with Nordmoe family donation

Mill Valley, CA – June 18, 2024 SRF has established a dedicated account to support research regarding SYNGAP1 missense variants. This account is being launched with a $10,000 donation from Dennis and Janet Nordmoe. This is a cause close to their hearts, as their granddaughter Olivia was diagnosed with SYNGAP1-Related Disorder (SRD) caused by a missense variant earlier this year. Missense Research: Neglected to Date “Most diagnosed SYNGAP1-Related Disorder (SRD) patients have protein truncating variants (PTV) as opposed to missense variants. Virtually all PTVs are assumed to have the ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

Design and development of a novel light sheet fluorescence microscope

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging of organs and tissues is vital as it can provide important structural information at the cellular level. 3D imaging enables the accurate visualization of tissues and also helps in the identification of pathological conditions. However, achieving successful 3D imaging necessitates specific prerequisites, including the preparation of 'cleared' tissue samples—biological specimens rendered transparent by removing light-scattering components like lipids to ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

Spotted apex predator being pressured by spotted pack hunters – and it's our fault

Who’s stronger? A solitary leopard or cackle of hyenas? And which is best at getting along with humans? University of Copenhagen researchers closely studied this in a large East African natural area surrounded by rural settlements. The study demonstrates that the presence of humans has a direct impact on the competitive relationship between the two large predator species: leopards (Panthera pardus) – the iconic spotted feline and the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) – a kleptoparasite and pack hunter known for its comical ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

New molecules to modulate gene expression

Genoa (Italy)/Grenoble (France) – 2nd July, 2024 - The correct functioning of cells relies heavily on the ability to finely control gene expression, a complex process by which the information contained in DNA is copied into RNA to eventually give rise to all the proteins and most of the regulatory molecules in the cell. If DNA can be imagined as a dense technical manual, gene expression is the method by which the cell extracts useful information from it. Researchers at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

Study shows hairy skin does not become less sensitive with age

Like most primates, humans are remarkably touchy-feely. Starved of touch, we release more of the stress hormone cortisol, which causes the immune system to be down-regulated and the heart rate and blood pressure to go up. On the other hand, touch causes the brain to be flooded by natural opioids, the ‘bonding hormone’ oxytocin, and the ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. It is generally assumed that our sense of touch worsens with age, just like our vision and sense of hearing. However, new results are good news for those who wished they could stave off age-related decline forever: they show for the first time that a deterioration ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

Study explores what motivates people to watch footage of disasters and extreme weather

Extreme weather events such as hurricanes and storms have increased in both frequency and severity in recent years. With that has come heightened public interest, resulting in often dramatic footage being live-streamed on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Discord. Now, a new study conducted at the University of Plymouth has for the first time analysed what might be motivating people to watch these streams – in some instances for up to 12 hours at a time. The research centred around the live-streaming ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

Will the Paris 2024 Olympics be a platform for activist protests amid global tensions?

Athletes and sporting teams have frequently used the Olympics and other sporting events to make political statements through boycotts and protests. Ahead of the Paris Olympics kicking off this month and amidst the current UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) European Football Championship (Euro 2024), researchers are asking – should sport be a platform for promoting social justice issues? The 2024 Paris Olympics, like the Euro 2024 soccer tournament, will be watched by billions of people and command media attention around the globe. ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

Mechanism of lupus pathogenesis unveiled

A research team of Professor Yoontae Lee and Jiho Park, a PhD candidate, from the Department of Life Sciences at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) recently discovered that a particular protein promotes the development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), one of the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific journal. B cells, components of the body's ...

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Science2 Jul 2024

How well do deep-sea animals perform under pressure?

A multi-institutional team that includes researchers from the University of Delaware, University of California San Diego and Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), among others, published a paper in Science on Thursday, June 27, that provides new insight on how deep-sea “comb jellies” called ctenophores adapt and survive at extreme pressures. It turns out that part of the adaptation involves lipids, fatty chemical compounds found in the membrane of all living cells that perform essential functions, including storing energy, sending signals and controlling what passes through ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Dr. Harish Manyam revolutionizes cardiac care with innovative device

Harish Manyam, MD, is on a mission to improve the lives of people with heart problems. His recent accomplishment of implanting Tennessee’s first atrial leadless pacemaker is a step toward that, marking a significant advancement in cardiac care and promising safer and more effective treatment for patients. The leadless pacemaker, in combination with a novel subcutaneous defibrillator, forms a groundbreaking system that addresses potentially dangerous problems associated with traditional pacemakers and defibrillators. “This is a great leap forward for the field,” said Dr. Manyam, interim chair of the Department of Medicine at the ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Danforth Plant Science Center President & CEO announces leadership transition plan

ST. LOUIS, MO., July 1, 2024 – Today, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center President and CEO Jim Carrington, PhD, announced he will step down on July 1, 2025. “I’ve been so fortunate to have had this opportunity over the past 13 years,” said Dr. Carrington. “We’ve been able to do so much because of our exceptional people, our partners and our supporters. But it’s time to plan for a transition, and I know the Center will benefit greatly from the renewal of perspective, ideas ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Commercial stock photos of farmworkers found lacking

A new North Carolina State University study examining the availability and content of commercial stock farmworker photos – images often used in health- and safety-education materials for farmworkers – shows a dearth of useful depictions of the people who work on farms and the tasks they perform. The study’s recommendations could lead to more relevant education materials that gain more attention and engagement from farmworkers “I was really interested in how farmworkers were represented in stock-photo libraries,” said Catherine LePrevost, agromedicine extension specialist and associate extension professor in NC State’s Department ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Genetic patterns of world’s farmed, domesticated foxes revealed via historical deep-dive

URBANA, Ill. — Domesticated animals play a prominent role in our society, with two-thirds of American families enjoying the companionship of pets and many others relying on animal products for their nutritional needs. But the process of domestication remains a bit of a mystery. Convincing wild animals they are safe enough to coexist and mate in enclosures and in close proximity to humans and other animals is no small feat. What does it take behaviorally and genetically for that to happen? For the most part, the animals we’ve domesticated have been docile for so long that ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

NRL intern discovers a new pulsar buried in a mountain of data

WASHINGTON – U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Remote Sensing Division intern, Amaris McCarver, along with a team of astronomers, discovered the first millisecond pulsar in the stellar cluster Glimpse-CO1 and recently published findings in the Astrophysical Journal. Pulsars are natural laboratories for studying the behavior of matter under extreme gravitational and magnetic fields - conditions difficult or impossible to replicate on Earth. They also function as natural timekeepers. Precise timing of the observed pulses from an array of pulsars offers a means to ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Harvard researchers find that gratitude is a useful emotional tool in reducing desire to smoke

Smoking continues to rank as the foremost preventable cause of premature death. In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), Harvard researchers report findings that evoking feelings of gratitude in people who smoke helps reduce their urge to smoke, and increases their likelihood of enrollment in a smoking cessation program. They note that these findings could inform newer approaches to public health messaging campaigns that aim to reduce so-called “appetitive” risk behaviors like smoking, drinking, and drug use. The research team built on the Appraisal Tendency Framework, a theoretical model of emotiona and decision making, ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

UMD researchers develop new and improved camera inspired by the human eye

A team led by University of Maryland computer scientists invented a camera mechanism that improves how robots see and react to the world around them. Inspired by how the human eye works, their innovative camera system mimics the tiny involuntary movements used by the eye to maintain clear and stable vision over time. The team’s prototyping and testing of the camera—called the Artificial Microsaccade-Enhanced Event Camera (AMI-EV)—was detailed in a paper published in the journal Science Robotics in May 2024. “Event cameras are a relatively new technology better at tracking ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Novel spectroscopy technique sheds light on NOx reduction

When power plants burn fossil fuels at high temperatures, nitrogen and oxygen molecules break apart and then recombine to form a class of compounds called nitrogen oxides, or NOx. These gasses are major pollutants and contribute to—among other things—acid rain and global warming. One way to curb such emissions is with a catalytic converter, similar to what’s used in a vehicle. “The catalytic converter injects ammonia into the plant’s emissions stream, and the hydrogen in the ammonia reacts with the oxygen in the NOx, and the products ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Marasco studying inclusive design of contactless fingerprints to mitigate skin tone and gender bias

Emanuela Marasco, Assistant Professor, Center for Secure Information Systems, received funding for the project: “Identity Verification in Smartphones as Social Intersectionality: Inclusive Design of Contactless Fingerprints to Mitigate Skin Tone and Gender Bias.” She is developing a contactless biometric mobile security application that can mitigate the vulnerabilities of deep artificial intelligence and optical sensors and allow marginalized identities the same access to data security. As part of their work, members of the project team will identify the impact of physical vulnerabilities; their ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Excess US deaths attributable to high all-cause mortality rates among youths

About The Study: The mortality gap between the U.S. and comparison countries widened in the last decade. Each year, nearly 20,000 deaths among youths ages 0 to 19 years would not have occurred had U.S. youths experienced the median mortality rates of 16 comparison countries. More than half of these deaths involved infants, reflecting disproportionately high U.S. infant mortality rates. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Steven H. Woolf, M.D., M.P.H., email steven.woolf@vcuhealth.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.1869) Editor’s ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

A prosthesis driven by the nervous system helps people with amputation walk naturally

State-of-the-art prosthetic limbs can help people with amputations achieve a natural walking gait, but they don’t give the user full neural control over the limb. Instead, they rely on robotic sensors and controllers that move the limb using predefined gait algorithms. Using a new type of surgical intervention and neuroprosthetic interface, MIT researchers, in collaboration with colleagues from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, have shown that a natural walking gait is achievable using a prosthetic leg fully driven by the body’s own nervous system. ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

The evidence is mounting: humans were responsible for the extinction of large mammals

The debate has raged for decades: Was it humans or climate change that led to the extinction of many species of large mammals, birds, and reptiles that have disappeared from Earth over the past 50,000 years? By "large," we mean animals that weighed at least 45 kilograms – known as megafauna. At least 161 species of mammals were driven to extinction during this period. This number is based on the remains found so far. The largest of them were hit the hardest – land-dwelling herbivores weighing over a ton, the megaherbivores. Fifty thousand years ago, there were 57 species of megaherbivores. Today, only 11 remain. These remaining ...

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Science1 Jul 2024

Daily sauna time might help prevent menopause-related weight gain

Chicago (July 1, 2024) — New research performed with mice suggests that daily time in a warm environment such as a sauna might help older adults, especially women, combat age-related obesity and insulin resistance. The study shows the potential of heat treatments as a simple way to promote healthier aging. The researchers found that older female mice receiving a daily 30-minute whole-body heat treatment gained less weight and showed improved use of insulin, which helps control blood sugar. The investigators ...

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